Biotech Stock Mailbag: Sangamo Biosciences

BOSTON (TheStreet) -- I recently highlighted Sangamo Biosciences as one of the top 10 biotech stock trades in the second half of 2010 because I perceived the pending results from a phase IIb study of SB-509 in diabetic neuropathy as a referendum on the company's zinc-finger drug technology platform. Some readers took issue with that characterization, arguing that Sangamo and its zinc-finger technology -- which engineers custom proteins to turn disease-related genes on or off -- will not live or die based on the results from a single phase IIb study in diabetic neuropathy. "Lest you think I'm a rabid cheerleader, let me say first that SB-509 will almost certainly fail," writes Eric B. "Your lack of insight is startling," he adds. "Zinc fingers are not drugs. The drug in the neuropathy trial are localized cells that have had their veg-f genes upregulated. The trial will determine if that is effective, not whether turning on and off genes via a zinc finger is a viable way of making drugs." ... Click to view a price quote on SGMO. Click to research the Drugs industry.

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